


Bandaged Moments

by donutsweeper



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-08-30 04:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8517928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutsweeper/pseuds/donutsweeper
Summary: When a mission goes badly Jensen pays the consequences and Cougar does not approve.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redleather](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redleather/gifts).



"Shit! Cougar, what the fuck are you thinking bursting in here like that? I almost shot you, man. What the hell are you doing back now anyway, it should've taken- holy shit, is that Jay? What the fuck happened?"

"Ambush."

"Ambush _and_ jammers, man. Fucking sweet jammers. They were… oh man, I don' feel so good…."

"Jay? Jay! Lay him down over here. Shit, this looks bad, I need my kit! Someone get me my kit! Thanks. Okay, let me just. Cougar, come on, let him go. You have to let them treat him! Shit, a little help here, Colonel?"

"Cougar, give Pooch room to work. Cougar! Roque, get your ass over here!"

"I'm on monitors, Clay!"

"That can wait! Grab Cougar and get him out of here, Roque-"

"No! Fuck off, Roque! Let me go!"

"Ow! Fuck! Cougar, fuck! Colonel?"

"Just get him out of here. Knock him out if you have to, Roque. I don't care, but don't let him back in here until he's calmed the fuck down."

"I'm going to fucking kill you. Roque! Fuck! Jensen-"

"Shit, Colonel, you know, he's going to get you for that."

"Cougar or Roque?"

"I'm going to go with both."

"Probably, but it needed to be done. How is he?"

"Looks like the first bullet went straight through his arm here so that should be no problem. This other wound though. I'm not sure, I can't see; can you shine the light right… yeah, that's better."

"Do I need to call it in?"

"That'd mean scrapping our whole set up here and with the amount of work Jensen put into this mission you're never going to hear the end of it if it winds up he did it all for nothing."

"Well, he's not going to be complaining if he's dead so tell me, do I need to call it in?"

"Give me a minute, I just need to. Okay, no, this doesn’t look too bad. Let me just give him some of this to make sure he's out and then I can—"

*****************************************************************************************************************************

Jensen regained consciousness slowly. He was first aware of a throbbing in his arm and down his side and then the muzziness in his head. Head? He remembered the getting shot part, sort of, but why the fuck was he so sore everywhere? "Why do I feel like I got hit by a truck?" he groaned.

There was an intake of breath to his left followed by a soft, "cabrón!" 

"Now, that's not nice, Cougar," he began. Or, more accurately, he tried to, but his voice cracked as he spoke and his throat was strangely dry.

Something was pressed against his lip. "Drink," Cougar ordered.

Oh, a straw. Without opening his eyes, Jensen opened his mouth and let Cougar position the straw so he could sip from it. The water was warm and kind of stale, but still tasted great. He hummed in a way he hoped Cougar would interpret as a thank you and shifted a bit, preparing himself to settle back to sleep.

He was vaguely aware of a gentle thunk. He thought it might be Cougar putting the cup down on the floor, but he couldn't be certain. Jensen had just about drifted off when then there was the familiar fabricky swish of Cougar removing his hat and then suddenly Cougar was yelling at him and thwacking him with the hat in time to each word, "What. Were. You. Thinking. You. Stupid. Son. Of. A."

"Woah!" Jensen cried out, shocked into being fully awake. "Holy crap," he said, having finally gotten his eyes open and taken a good look at Cougar, who had, thankfully, quit his barrage and instead was just sitting there, glaring at him. "You look like shit. Why do you look like shit? Did you get hit too? I don't remember you getting hit." 

And Jensen _would_ have remembered that. He _always_ knew when Cougar got hurt; even that time he'd been delirious from that fever with that awful infection he'd known the moment his head was clear that Cougar'd fucked up his knee again when they'd been rushing to meet up with the helo. Cougar might try, but he could never hide shit like that from him. But it didn't look like Cougar was trying to hide shit, more like he was… "Are you mad at me?"

The responding glare was immediate.

"Okay, well that's an affirmative," Jensen said as his mind drifted back to what he remembered of what happened to try to figure out why. They had been in the tail end of the planning stage of the op with Jensen doing the last bit of intelligence gathering in the form of breaking into an office and nicking some much needed intel from the servers of the shell company their target was using to hide his weapons shipments. Cougar was acting as his backup, guarding his six from his vantage point on top of the warehouse across the parking lot. They were operating under radio silence due to the unexpected jammers on site, but, considering how much Cougar usually talked, all that had meant was that Jensen couldn't keep Cougar in the loop with a running commentary of how sweet a system he was cracking.

Luckily, the window was open so Cougar' sharp warning whistle was loud enough to drag Jensen's attention away from the screen. He'd looked up immediately and not only spotted the two thugs making their way across the lot towards the trailer he was currently working in, but also the well-armed asshole on the fire escape about to get Cougar in his sights. Knowing he didn't have the time or ability to give a sufficient warning, Jensen chose to shoot at the asshole instead, figuring that even if he missed, he'd still fuck up the man's aim. He knew he could trust Cougar to take down the thugs in the lot as well as anyone else that might be attracted by the noise. Of course, the resulting weapons fire had brought more bad guys out of the woodwork and there'd been a pretty decent gun battle going on before Cougar had put an end to it with his amazing shooting prowess.

Jensen clearly remembered taking the bullet in the arm because it stung like a motherfucker. He was pretty sure he took one in the side immediately after, in the same moment that the thugs burst through the door and right before Cougar took them both down but that didn't explain why Cougar was so pissed at him. "Did I say something stupid on the way back here?" he hazarded. Jensen knew he didn't have the best brain-to-mouth filter under normal conditions, but when blood loss and pain were factored in, all bets were off.

Cougar crossed his arms, leaned back, and glared at Jensen some more. "Okay, that's not one of your 'I said something stupid' glares, those have less eyebrows." Jensen sighed. "Which means I did something stupid, but I didn't, Cougar. I mean, I know you think I did- you're pissed about me giving away my location by shooting at that guy, right? And I get that. I was the primary and you were the backup, but… Shit, Cougar, what the fuck was I supposed to do? Let some two-bit asshole take you out?"

After a few, painfully long minutes, Cougar ground out, "You compromised the mission."

Which wasn't what Cougar was really pissed about, but Jensen had a rebuttal at the ready so he didn't argue the point. "Yeah, things got cut a bit short but I had time enough to slip my little trojan into the code so it's tucked away all nice and neat and ready to get accessed whenever we need it."

Cougar acknowledged that with a twitch of his lip and then sighed, sinking into his chair, his loose hair falling forward and covering his face. "Cougs?" Jensen reached over with his good arm and ran his fingers along Cougar's knee. "Cougar?"

"My sightline wasn't ideal," Cougar began softly, rubbing circles on Jensen's hand with his thumb as he spoke. "I saw you get hit but not where, only that it was upper body. You went down so fast. And the blood. It was only when I got to you that I saw..."

"I was finishing typing the last command with my left while I fired at that asshole coming up on you with my right and I knew they'd be coming in the door so I started to stand and. Oh." Jensen took a deep breath as he realized what it would have looked like from Cougar's vantage point. "You thought I took a bullet straight in the chest. You didn't know that I'd gotten my arm up, that I got hit there first and the bullet was slowed and its angle altered so it got me more in the side and away from all my nice squishy bits so there was nothing to worry about."

"Squishy bits," Cougar huffed and then muttered something under his breath in Spanish that Jensen couldn't catch.

"What was that? Anda que despute something something?" 

"Anda que después ya te anda, seso seco."

"Yeah, that doesn't help me at all. Come on, Cougar, don't be like that, you know my Spanish sucks even when I'm not all fuzzy. Seso seco, that's something good, right?" Jensen lifted his hand up to grab a bit of Cougar's hair and tugged on it gently, bringing Cougar towards him. "Like it means lover or stud muffin or my-boyfriend-Jensen-is-the-most-amazing-guy-in-the-whole-world?"

"Yes." Cougar chuckled and let himself be pulled nearer to Jensen. "Yes, that is exactly what it means."

Jensen snorted. "Yeah, I'm not buying that innocent act from you. It's probably moron or dumbass or something. You always, grr what's that word, disparage? You're always disparaging me when you're muttering about me in Spanish."

"Es posible." Cougar gave him an unrepentant shrug so Jensen tugged harder until Cougar's upper half had basically settled next to Jensen on the bed.

"You're lucky I love you," Jensen grumbled, turning just enough to plant a kiss on Cougar's forehead. "Now get your ass off that chair and up on the bed and keep me company."

"You are injured."

"I didn't mean that kind of company. Jeez, you have a dirty mind. I meant _company_ company, as in I'm cold and—"

"Hey, Cougar, it just me. It's time for a vitals check again. Glare all you want, but no killing the Pooch when he's doing the job he's been ordered to do because both you and I know… Jay, hey, you're awake." Pooch stopped in the doorway, one hand still on the door handle while the other clutched his med bag.

"Yep. Awake and doing fine. Cougar's taking care of me."

"Oh _is_ he now? Cougar, man, seriously? Taking care of him, huh? Do we need to have yet another discussion about appropriate and inappropriate behavior in regards to wounded teammates?"

"Poochman, you have a dirty, dirty mind. Cougar's just. Wait. Another discussion? Inappropriate behavior? What? I don't remember this. Cougar, do you have something you need to tell me?"

Cougar shook his head and hid his face the crook of Jensen's neck.

"Pooch?"

"Just take my advice and do _not_ ask Roque about what happened to his eye." Pooch grimaced in that 'do not ask me about the shit I've seen' kind of way of his but, because he was Pooch and Pooch was awesome, he began to explain as he started changing Jensen's bandages. "I don't know if you remember, but you were pretty out of it by the time Cougar got you back here and he was not taking it well. The result was that he combined that 'I'm a badass sniper, don't fuck with me ' personality of his with that bullshit kind of overprotective boyfriend stereotype in those movies that you and Jolene love and, yeah, it would have been kind of hysterical if you hadn't been bleeding everywhere, but since you were, Clay ordered Roque to get Cougar out of the way while I was fixing you up."

"I did not approve," Cougar added flatly, without moving other than to shift his chair closer to the bed to get out of Pooch's way.

"Yeah, no shit. Talk about understatements of the century." Pooch dutifully ignored Jensen's involuntary hiss of pain the surgical tape caught as he was trying to peel it up and continued, "Apparently your boy here almost got his ass tossed in the lake. I don't know the specifics, I was a little busy trying to make sure you didn't die on me at the time."

"I didn't think I got hit that bad."

"Well, you lost a little more blood than I'd have liked; for a bit there I thought it'd be more than I could deal with." Cougar let out a soft, distressed noise at that point which both Pooch and Jensen pretended not to notice. "Once I got the bullet out though, all you needed was a little of my amazing stitch work."

"It is awesome stitch work. No, I'm serious, man," he added when Pooch scoffed, "you're at least as good as that nurse with the earrings from that time in Norway."

"What nurse?" 

"Oh, don't use that tone with me, Cougar, you green with jealousy silly, silly sniper you. The nurse. The tiny one who went up to like Roque's waist but still bullied him into not only getting a full workup but also a tetanus shot? Had a florescent green feather earring? She stitched me up after that thing in the quarry and they were the teeniest little stitches I ever saw. Beautiful. Like yours, Pooch. Yours are great! I am proud to display needlework of the mighty Pooch!"

"Enough about my stiches already. If I didn't know you I'd say you were exhibiting all the signs of extreme confusion due to hypovolemic shock and tell Clay we had to call for immediate extraction, but, luckily I guess, I _do_ know you and am used to your ridiculous amount of random babble. So, I'm just going to finish taping on this bandage and leave you under Cougar's watchful glare and head on back to the relative sanity of Roque fawning creepily over his knives muttering about idiot commanders and asshole snipers while Clay pretends to ignore him." Pooch gave the bandages a quick once over before nodding and turning to Cougar adding, "I know it's practically impossible, but try to keep him calm and get him to rest as much as you can."

"I will do my best."

"Yeah, yeah, I guess that's all I can ask." It took Pooch only a few minutes to repack his med bag before he turned to Jensen and gave him the Finger Waggle of Doom. "Bedrest for at least the rest of the day and that means actual resting, so no laptop. And don't think I won't tattle on you. Jolene's going up to New Hampshire for that soccer invitational thing next weekend so I totally can."

Jensen sighed; as far as threats went that was a pretty good one. "I'll be good."

"You better be," Pooch warned. He stopped in the doorway and gave Cougar a quick glare. "And when I say bedrest, I mean resting in bed and that's it, got it?"

"Sí."

"Good." Despite his order, Pooch pulled the door most of the way shut behind him, giving them a semblance of privacy.

"Now that he's gone you can climb on up here," Jensen said, but Cougar remained where he was, half on the chair and half on the bed. "Cougar…."

"You are supposed to be resting."

"I want snuggles." Jensen knew he sounded whiny, but he didn't care. "I'm all muzzy and achy and I got shot and I want snuggles. Come on, Cougs. Please?"

Cougar huffed and gave a halfhearted grumble, but complied, climbing onto the bed and gently settling in, curled up against Jensen's side. "Better?"

"Sí," Jensen said, wrapping his good arm around Cougar, grabbing his hand and threading their fingers together. "Sí! See? I can do Spanish too!"

That got a chuckle out of Cougar. "Yes, you 'do' Spanish very well. Now sleep."

"If I must." 

"You must." 

Jensen sighed, closing his eyes. He actually was pretty tired, and with Cougar's comforting warmth pressed against his side he was soon drifting off. The last thing he was aware of was Cougar bringing his hand up and kissing his knuckles, murmuring something softly in Spanish.

**Author's Note:**

> For redleather, who wanted Cougar/Jensen, hope you like it!
> 
> Thanks to mesonyx for the beta and arithanas for the Spanish help. Basically, what Cougar says is 'you say this now, but later you'll see the consequences, dimwit' but in a teasing, loving manner.
> 
> Title taken from the Emily Dickinson poem, "The Soul has Bandaged moments."


End file.
